Performance Reviews
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
Hearing Lucas Meachem perform Kindertotenlieder in the crypt of Harlem’s Church of the Intercession was a heart-warming, and ultimately uplifting experience.
Così fan tutte, Mozart’s final Italian comedy with Lorenzo Da Ponte, is this season’s heaviest lift for Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA).
Russell Thomas’s opening aria, “Del piu sublime soglio” displayed an intense attention to the text and some surprisingly beautiful piano phrasing that I’ve never heard risked before and it brought wonder and gooseflesh.
The most disappointing performance in 30 otherwise glorious years of William Christie and Les Arts Florissants visiting New York City.
Sondra Radvanovsky returned for her 29th Met Aïda Thursday night (but only her second Aïda.)
West Bay Opera’s sterling production of Verdi’s I due Foscari played over the last two weekends.
Tenor Matthew Polenzani and pianist Julius Drake’s performance left this listener in a a state of euphoria.
What happens in Karlsruhe stays in Karlsruhe!
Since 1985, from the Chicago Symphony at Carnegie Hall to the Welsh National Opera visiting BAM and from Chicago Lyric to New York City Opera to the Met, I’ve never encountered a bad Falstaff—or one that didn’t astound and delight me.
The full title of the opera pretty much describes the plot: Il mondo alla roversa osia Le donne che comandano.
We humans tend to dislike uncertainty, therefore there is something comforting going to opera revivals; you know exactly what you are going to get.
The Day Before Spring , while not exactly experimental, shows a young and adventurous team thinking both traditionally and out-of-the-box.
You’d want to expect that every Met retread would draw the same curiosity, the same large crowds, to Lincoln Center.
Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward’s 1935 “folk” opera, graced the stage of Dutch National Opera for the first time last month, and it was resounding success from start to finish.
The “Red Priest” of Venice once made reference to his “94 operas” in a letter to his patron.
It may have taken 28 years to see Robert Carsen’s production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the U. S., but it was worth waiting for.
Director Casey Hushion attempts to spice up Call Me Madam in ways that make it feel more than ever like an out-of-touch relic.
Handel’s Radamisto returned to New York when Opera Lafayette movingly performed this early masterpiece.
Utopia Opera is fond of the less well known branches of the Savoy repertory (as the company name suggests), and is currently (through next weekend) doing a job on an early and rare bird of the flock, The Sorcerer.
Barbara Hannigan‘s electrifying performance with the Juilliard Orchestra on Friday night proves that she is as much a force to be reckoned with on the podium as she is onstage.
La Fille du Régiment, Donizetti’s half-spoken ode to La France about a girl raised by a division of daddies, is at once infamous and beloved for the string of nine high C’s capping act one.
Considering the size and the logistics for staging Les Troyens, every new production of Berlioz’s epic masterpiece is a special event.
The Paris Opera continued their 350th anniversary celebration January 26 with a brand new production of Alessandro Scarlatti’s 1707 oratorio Il Primo Omicidio ovvero Caino.
A beautiful concert of 18th century sacred music arrived at Weill Recital Hall performed by the soulful Polish Wunderkind Jakub Jósef Orlinski.
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
